Anastasia "Nastia" Kuzmivna Vasetska (Ukrainian: Анастасія «Настя» Кузьмівна Васецька; c. 1900–1981) was a Ukrainian peasant. She was the first wife of the anarchist revolutionary Nestor Makhno.
Nastia Vasetska | |
|---|---|
| Настя Васецька | |
| Born | Anastasia Kuzmivna Vasetska Late 1890s Huliaipole, Alexandrovsky Uyezd, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine) |
| Died | 1981 (aged 80–81) Polohy, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Soviet Ukraine |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 5 |
Life
editAnastasia "Nastia" Kuzmivna Vasetska was born in the late 1890s,[a] in the Ukrainian town of Huliaipole.[2] She was raised into a poor peasant family and was the oldest of three sisters.[3] During the 1910s, she began writing letters to the local anarchist revolutionary Nestor Makhno, who was at that time imprisoned in Moscow's Butyrka prison.[4] After Makhno's release in 1917, he returned to Huliaipole, where the two met and married;[5] they did not have a formal church wedding, as Makhno was an atheist.[6] They lived together on a commune,[7] to which Vasetska and Makhno both contributed.[8] However, Makhno's activism during this time meant he had little time to focus on their relationship.[9]
Vasetska was eventually forced to flee Huliaipole after being threatened by Black Guards, taking their child with her.[10] In early 1918, she reunited with Makhno in Tsaritsyn,[11] after he had been forced into exile by the invasion of the Central Powers, and he found her lodging at a nearby farm.[12] Makhno soon left her to continue his travels and they never saw each other again.[13] Their baby, Sasha, died young,[14] having suffered from a birth defect.[15]
After hearing a rumor that Makhno had died, Vasetska found another partner.[16] Makhno himself married Halyna Kuzmenko; according to Ivan Kushnirenko, their relationship was more romantic than the one Makhno had with Vasetska.[17] In some histories of the Makhnovist movement, a myth circulated that Vasetska herself had been murdered by Makhno's followers.[18] According to Kushnirenko, she never held a grudge towards Makhno, who himself also remembered her fondly.[19]
In 1918, Vasetska returned to Huliaipole,[20] where she found a living selling sunflower seeds.[15] She lived in Huliaipole until she was 45.[21] After World War II, when she was 48, she got married.[22] She moved with her new husband to Polohy, where she lived out the rest of her life,[23] and helped raise her husband's four children.[24] There, she was visited by one of Makhno's descendants[25] and by local historians investigating the Makhnovist movement.[26] She and her sisters were photographed together in 1976.[27] She died in 1981.[1]
Notes
editReferences
edit- 1 2 Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, p. 203.
- 1 2 Yalanskyi & Verevka 1999, p. 157.
- ↑ Yalanskyi & Verevka 1999, p. 158.
- ↑ Darch 2020, p. 88; Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, p. 201.
- ↑ Darch 2020, p. 10; Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, p. 201; Yalanskyi & Verevka 1999, p. 158.
- ↑ Yalanskyi & Verevka 1999, pp. 158–159.
- ↑ Kushnirenko 2018, pp. 6, 36; Skirda 2004, p. 38; Yalanskyi & Verevka 1999, p. 160.
- ↑ Kushnirenko 2018, pp. 6, 36; Yalanskyi & Verevka 1999, p. 160.
- ↑ Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, pp. 201–202; Malet 1982, p. 4.
- ↑ Darch 2020, p. 10.
- ↑ Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, pp. 201–202; Malet 1982, pp. 9–10.
- ↑ Malet 1982, pp. 9–10.
- ↑ Darch 2020, p. 88; Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, p. 202.
- ↑ Darch 2020, p. 88; Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, pp. 201–202.
- 1 2 Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, pp. 201–202.
- ↑ Malet 1982, p. 10; Skirda 2004, pp. 302–303.
- ↑ Kushnirenko 2018, p. 93.
- ↑ Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, p. 194.
- ↑ Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, p. 202.
- ↑ Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, pp. 201–202; Yalanskyi & Verevka 1999, p. 157.
- ↑ Yalanskyi & Verevka 1999, pp. 162–163.
- ↑ Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, pp. 201–202; Yalanskyi & Verevka 1999, p. 163.
- ↑ Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, p. 163; Yalanskyi & Verevka 1999.
- ↑ Yalanskyi & Verevka 1999, p. 163.
- ↑ Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, pp. 202–203.
- ↑ Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, pp. 202–203; Yalanskyi & Verevka 1999, pp. 16, 20, 157.
- ↑ Kushnirenko & Zhylynskyi 2009, p. 203; Kushnirenko 2018, p. 36.
Bibliography
edit- Darch, Colin (2020). Nestor Makhno and Rural Anarchism in Ukraine, 1917–1921. London: Pluto Press. ISBN 978-1786805263. OCLC 1225942343.
- Kushnirenko, Ivan (2018). Реформи Нестора Махна [Nestor Makhno's reforms] (in Ukrainian). Zaporizhzhia: Dniprovskyy metalurh. ISBN 978-617-573-148-2.
- Kushnirenko, Ivan; Zhylynskyi, Volodymyr (2009). Нестор Махно і повстанці [Nestor Makhno and the Insurgents] (in Ukrainian). Zaporizhzhia: Dniprovskyy metalurh. ISBN 978-966-2962-85-7.
- Malet, Michael (1982). Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil War. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-25969-6. OCLC 8514426.
- Skirda, Alexandre (2004) [1982]. Nestor Makhno–Anarchy's Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917–1921. Translated by Sharkey, Paul. Oakland, California: AK Press. ISBN 978-1-902593-68-5. OCLC 60602979.
- Yalanskyi, Vyktor; Verevka, Larysa (1999). Нестор и Галина. Рассказывают фотокарточки [Nestor and Galina. Photographs tell the story] (in Ukrainian). Kyiv: Iarmarok. ISBN 966-95615-0-7.